Boxes of meat 15cm from the dirty floor, noodles in buckets and ‘hazardous food’: Inside the dodgy Sydney Chinese restaurant fined $3520 for hygiene breaches
- Jilin Family Restaurant at Chatswood stored meat in boxes on the floor
- Willoughby Council found the food unlikely to be protected from contamination
- Inspectors took photos of the breaches after a tip from a member of the public
- More than 100 Sydney eateries have been issued penalty notices so far this year
A Sydney local council has handed down thousands of dollars in fines to a Chinese restaurant that was found to be storing boxes of meat on the floor.
Willoughby Council on Sydney’s North Shore fined the Jilin Family Restaurant at Chatswood $3520 for a number of breaches of the NSW Food Authority’s food safety standards after inspectors found the venue stored food in a way unlikely to protect against contamination.
Four infringement notices were issued when the inspectors photographer boxes of meat, noodles and a pot containing meat stored on concrete floors in a narrow corridor.
The Council had been tipped off by a member of the public.
Meat is visible in boxes kept on the floor in a corridor of the Jilin Family Restaurant at Chatswood, NSW
The restaurant was fined $3520 for a number of breaches of food safety standards after inspectors found the venue stored food in a way unlikely to protect against contamination
Food safety standards in Australia deem that food must be stored at least 15cm from the ground.
Jilin’s manager Sean Liu told the North Shore Times that the breaches were the result of new, untrained staff.
‘When the inspectors came we had new staff who were training – it was unlucky timing because the manager wasn’t there,’ Mr Liu said. ‘He was unwell.’
Mr Liu said the staff were no longer with the restaurant and that Jilin had not had a hygiene issue before.
‘There was a big plate of food near the floor but it wasn’t actually touching the ground and the meat wasn’t served to customers,’ he said.
The restaurant’s manager blamed new, untrained staff for the hygiene breach
Nevertheless, the restaurant now appears on the NSW Food Authority’s ‘Name and Shame’ register on its website.
Another 120 Sydney restaurants located across Sydney appear on the list for being penalty notices this year, with 16 of them in the Chatswood area in the past 12 months.
‘Containers that will subsequently be placed on food contact surfaces should be stored off the floor on shelves,’ a Safe Food Australia document on food safety standards states.
‘If these containers are stored on the floor, contamination from the floor is transferred to the food contact surface from the underside of the container.’
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